


Syali

by avani



Series: The Nidhana 'Verse [3]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-06-30 21:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15760038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: For weeks the town criers announce the arrival of the Princess Varuni, so assiduous in their duties that when the day itself dawns, Devasena is heartily tired of hearing about it.





	Syali

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AllegoriesInMediasRes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/gifts).



For weeks the town criers announce the arrival of the Princess Varuni, so assiduous in their duties that when the day itself dawns, Devasena is heartily tired of hearing about it. She has little excuse for her discomfort. Even her neighbors greet the news of Bhallaladeva’s marriage with pleasure; “It means a holiday, at the very least,” Charu confides in her during yet another delivery, “and three days’ feasting if the Queen Mother is feeling very generous.”

What the Queen Mother does and does not feel is, happily, no longer of any concern for Devasena. The people of Mahishmati, however, venerate her no less than they ever did, and so Devasena holds her tongue. She manages to do so when they praise the Queen Mother’s choice: how she is unmatched in beauty throughout the world, how she is the first of her father’s six lovely daughters, how she brings with her in bridal jewelry ten grown men’s weight in gold, but at last:

“Most wonderful,” Devasena points out, her patience come to an end, “but what does she think, what does she believe? What will she mean for Mahishmati?”

“Well—,” Charu splutters, before averting her eyes. “The stability of the throne, Lady. A successor.”

Devasena falls silent, though not for the reasons Charu might believe. If indeed this Varuni produces an heir, Devasena will love her for it: the birth of a healthy son will make the only thing Baahubali achieved that his brother has not, and with the royal line secured, her own family might be allowed the safety of obscurity. Even now, her skin prickles with unease no matter how much her husband laughs at her. She has only just allowed Kumar Varma to visit, not that he necessarily waits for her permission. But if Bhallaladeva is content with consort and child both, and too concerned with their affairs to connive against mere exiles, Kumar Varma need not be a stranger to his nephew, and she might even see her brother and Sumitra again—

But it will be long months yet; until then Devasena can only wait. That, she decides, must cause her discontent.

*

The princess is taken about her future kingdom in a grand procession, so that she can see and, more importantly, be seen by her people. Devasena and her family do not attend; decorum and indifference might keep Bhallaladeva away, but nonetheless it seems unwise to make their presence felt. Mahendra, though, doesn’t seem to understand such complexities at his age, and by the time she has fetched him—twice!—from joining his friends, Devasena is in no mood to indulge his curiosity.

“From where?” Mahendra asks, and Devasena only murmurs, “She comes from far away.”

He is too clever, even at two, to be satisfied with such a platitude. He frowns in his father’s lap—Charu having been correct about the promised holiday—and demands: “From where?”

Baahubali, ever more lenient with his son, laughs and takes pity on him. “Madhulaipura,” he replies gravely. “Two weeks’ travel at the least, with a fast horse.”

“Oh,” says Mahendra, nodding so sagely one might forget he has never been further than fifteen minutes’ walk from their cottage. “Far away.”

“So I said, Mahendra,” Devasena reminds him. “Eat your dinner.”

His look is so reproachful—not in the least because she insisted on helping Lakshmi with the _rotis_ , and they are ever-so-slightly charred—that she must laugh, despite her crossness, and take him into her arms.

“Is it true what they say?” Lakshmi wants to know. “Will the King really marry the most beautiful woman in the world?”

Baahubali shrugs. “Some claim that,” he offers, utterly unconcerned, before grinning at his wife. “Pity they don’t realize I married her years before.”

Devasena smiles back, as she ought to, but it occurs to her that it might be a burden, carrying the weight of such a title before Mahishmati might meet its new Queen and judge for itself. One more of the Queen Mother’s unsought gifts to a daughter-in-law, she decides in the end, and puts the thought firmly from her mind.

*

With the wedding, sweets from the palace are distributed by the command of the Queen Mother. To Devasena’s tongue they taste like nothing so much as dust, but she swallows them nonetheless, just as she does her disgust at hearing Bhallaladeva’s virtues recited. Mahishmati loves nothing so much as a bridegroom, even be he a madman. The royal couple is declared the kingdom’s future, and Devasena begins drafting a letter to Kuntala the night news comes that Queen Varuni is with child.

Lakshmi is the only one to remark darkly, “Rather early to proclaim such a thing,” the loyalty of a lady-in-waiting never entirely having left her. Honesty compels Devasena to admit she ought not to cast aspersions on any other, and she only smiles.

She has not much time to dwell on the matter, except with vague relief, in the months that follow: Mahendra uses this time to perfect his ability to climb, not only the steps of the veranda but also, terrifyingly, every rock, tree, and post within eyesight.

“I want to see,” he tells her plaintively when asked to explain himself, and Devasena, exasperated, reassures herself that this is nothing more than a particularly frustrating stage of his development that he’ll soon outgrow.

Mahendra manages to scramble halfway to the roof the same evening Charu whispers that Varuni is rumored to have lost her child. Devasena dismisses the news at the time, at least until Sunanda and Hari, neither of whom have a reputation for repeating uncertain rumors, both confirm it. The Queen Mother is beside herself, Sunanda tells her, and the King nearly undone with rage.

“And Varuni?” Devasena wants to know, remembering with a twinge of sympathy Sumitra’s white face so many years ago. “What of her?”

“Ah, how would any mother be, Lady?” Hari muses. “Sad, I expect. But did I mention to you that Queen Mother means to hold a thousand _pujas_ in the grand temple until the gods bless the Crown with an heir? Or—“ he breaks off, and his eyes dart uneasily towards Mahendra. “Another one, that is.”

Devasena burns her letter, still unsent, the same night.

*

Baahubali, unsurprisingly, takes it into his head to feel for his brother, attributing Bhallaladeva with all the grief he might have felt. Devasena, who knows Bhallaladeva could not be capable of anything so human, does not bother.

To his credit, her husband rarely argues when she points this out. “At least the Queen survived,” he says, eyes solemn, and in them she sees that old terror of death in childbirth, a product of being told that was how his own mother met her an end. No amount of noting the many infants born healthy and well—including Mahendra!—does anything to reduce it. Devasena sighs.

By no means he is the only one so troubled. Hope dies in Mahishmati as easily a flame smothered, and it takes only another pregnancy that does not come to term before the murmurs commence.

“The Queen is young yet,” Devasena replies as confidently as possible whenever her opinion on the matter is asked. “A child will surely follow.” She does her best not to begrudge the curiosity that always accompanies the question; it is only natural. But the old anxiety resurges in her heart regardless, try as she might, and Mahendra would find nothing in the world so appealing as toddling off alone on adventures.

It’s when she must collect him from one of these explorations about the village — “I wanted to see Father!” — that their paths collide with a palanquin. It might simply decorated, but Devasena recognizes those who bear it and exchanges a polite greeting with them. Rumor has it the Queen Motherorganized various pilgrimages for Varuni’s health; surely palace servants such as these would not be sent as escort on any mission of less importance.

That might be the end of it, if the palanquin curtains did not part, a pallid hand extending from them.

“You there!” drawls a woman, and Devasena fights the urge to draw herself up to her full height. She doubts she is remarkable at the moment, certainly not clutching her wriggling son to her side. She ought to be grateful for this.

“Yes?” Belatedly, Devasena thinks to add, “Your Highness?”

Any possibility she might only have mistaken her for another vanishes when the woman sniffs: “I would speak with you. ”

“What?”

Varuni—for surely it is she behind the drapes, and hopefully alone—hisses in annoyance. “You must have heard me: I would speak with you. If not—well, then, I have no wish to leave my home like the most shameless of harlots to seek you, but if I must—”

Refusal, it seems, is not an option. Reluctantly Devasena releases Mahendra. “Go home, Mahendra,” she commands. When he stays stubbornly in place, she adds: “This lady needs my help, like the other villagers. That’s all; there’s no need to worry.”

He seems no less convinced, but her smile does something to reassure him. Only after he issafely sent on his way does Devasena duck into the palanquin herself, to meet the woman she might have welcomed into her home as a sister if—if many things had been different.

Varuni’s reputation is by no means undeserved, but her extraordinary complexion and the brightness of her eyes reminds Devasena of nothing so much the plants that grow in the crevices of the mountains. Starved of sunlight, they are pallid and limp, desperate for any comfort possible, and Varuni—well, Varuni appears no different. She holds herself curiously still. Possibly it is due only to a sense of decorum that Devasena never mastered, but there is a laziness about it she cannot like.

“Well?” Devasena begins bluntly, faintly ashamed of her thoughts. She sees no need for deference, not when it is only the two of them.

Varuni, however, disagrees, if her frown is any indication. “It was—I wished to see you,” she says, very stiffly. “Quite a romantic tale it has become, you know.”

“I don’t,” says Devasena, though a terrible suspicion occurs to her. “Pray enlighten me.”

“Oh, the woman whose husband gave up a throne itself, all to have her. Even in my home—in Madhulaipura, they sang and sighed over it.”

And how shameful, to have a question of right and wrong, of oaths upheld, reduced only to a matter of selfish desire. Devasena is sure her displeasure must be evident, but she is helpless before her indignation. Better to depart before her temper overcame her, as ever.

“If that is all you meant to say, then I shall take my leav—“ she attempts, but to her surprise, Varuni holds out an arm to stop her. 

“No—I meant—how did you do it?”

Devasena is surprised into mirth. “If it’s me you’ve come to in hopes of advice at winning _Bhallaladeva_ ’s heart, you must know there are few others he holds in lower esteem.”

Varuni does not join her in laughter. “I should not think so,” she says, “but it was not that I meant. How—“

“Whatever little medicinal ability I possess,” Devasena says quickly, “has nothing to do with fertility or childbirth. Certainly the royal physician should be of far more use to you.” True enough, but also: what dreadful fate, to be discovered giving the Queen an unknown tincture. Should Varuni develop so much as a dripping nose afterwards, Bhallaladeva and his cronies would happily bring forth charges of treason; Devasena has no particular desire to wear chains once again.

“No,” Varuni says again, so frustrated she flings both hands out. “To bargain, to belong, to _be_! To busy myself with the concerns of strangers, when certainly none of them care a thing for me other than when I’ll produce a princeling for them!”

Unseemly words in one crowned Queen, are Devasena’s first thoughts—but she cannot entirely fault Varuni for them. Certainly she’s not mistaken in the populace’s first concern being that of her offspring: the populace, and the Queen Mother, and even Varuni’s own husband. Even Devasena is hardly blameless: any compassion she might feel is contaminated for her own desire for her family’s safety. And more than that—the fact that Varuni has the Queen Mother’s affection, for no reason other than that she is not Devasena.

Varuni smiles at her, bitter and brittle, daring her to offer any consolation. “I envy you,” she says, this woman who takes the place that might have once been Devasena’s own. “I see I always shall.”

“Varuni—“

A mistake; Devasena sees it in the way Varuni’s expression hardens. “Clearly you can be of no use to me,” she pronounces, “and so you may—go about your business, whatever it may be.”

Even so insolent a dismissal does not sting as it might have otherwise. Devasena, having exited the palanquin, waits and watches until it wends its lonely way back through the palace gates and turns her steps back home.

*

She writes to her brother that evening, in script far bolder and more assured than anything she feels. _Come to see me_ , she asks, _come to meet your nephew_. It does little to soothe the knot of apprehension in her belly, but—she will not live in a prison constructed from her own fear.

“Elder Uncle!” Mahendra whoops. “Shall I like him?”

“Doubtless,” Baahubali tells him, prompting Mahendra to start on a breathless recital of everyone he already knows, and likes. Devasena watches the two of them, and without meaning to, feels herself relax.

One day, she promises herself, she will see Varuni freed from her unhappiness, but until then—until then Devasena means to live as befits one who even the Queen of Mahishmati envies.

**Author's Note:**

> Syali - Sanskrit for "brother-in-law's wife", though it can also mean "wife's sister."  
> * Ally asked about Varuni quite some time ago, and I had to admit I wasn't entirely sure about her but that I knew she and Devasena had met before, and this, at last, is the story of that encounter. This is not necessarily all of Varuni's story, but I hope it will at least whet the appetite of any who were curious about her in her brief appearance in Nidhana.   
> * There's vague references to the rest of the Nidhana-verse throughout, from Bhalla's wedding (which, per "Antara" happened when Mahendra was almost-or-barely two) and Jayasena's visit (when Mahendra was around four-ish).  
> * Madhulaipura is canonically the kingdom from which Varuni hails.


End file.
